


Upending

by tnico



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Kaer Morhen, Lambert-centric, M/M, Young Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, ciri-centric, rude witcher man lies outrageously to child: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico
Summary: (For the prompt: Geralt and Jaskier take a younger Ciri with them to winter at Kaer Morhen. While there, she takes a liking to Lambert. As per usual, at no point did Lambert sign up for this.)The first mistake was falling back on his usual method for gettingadulthumans to bug off his case.Though in his defense, how was he supposed to know that some little kids actuallylikedbeing abruptly upended and dangled upside down by their ankles?
Relationships: (background), Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Lambert, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Lambert
Comments: 222
Kudos: 950
Collections: Good Relationship Etiquette (familial included) - or Good BDSM Etiquette - or Good Relationship and BDSM Etiquette





	1. For if it is upended

**Author's Note:**

> [The kmeme prompt:](https://witcherkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/429.html?thread=310445#cmt310445) "Look, it's bad enough that the bard is on a personal mission to become his best friend. But now, now, Geralt has returned to Kaer Morhen to winter with his freaking rugrat in tow and this tiny child absolutely adores him. And Lambert doesn't know how to deal with a 3-5 year old little girl thinking he's the greatest thing since sliced bread."
> 
> Hats off to Yanda from Yotsuba&!, who at one point previous inspired the thought "this would be Lambert's approach to Ciri, wouldn't it" which now that I'm on a Lambert POV kick kindled my natural response on seeing the prompt. What an iconic series villain. What sheer Lad Energy.

The first mistake was falling back on his usual method for getting _adult_ humans to bug off his case.

(Though in his defense, how was he supposed to know that some little kids actually _liked_ being abruptly upended and dangled upside down by their ankles?)

It goes downhill from there.

* * *

"Enough of this. Make your creeping hellspawn stop shadowing my yard time." Lambert demands.

Geralt doesn't look up from where he's been meditating over a simmering cauldron. Smells like onion, not boiling tar or oxide-ash, so probably it's dinner.

"I'm making stew," Geralt says, in both confirmation and _absolute cop-out_. His scowl's looking almost serene, and _so should it be_ , he's been getting a _free fucking ride_ on dealing with emphasis-his Child of Surprise-Lambert-It's-Your-Very-Own-Stalker-Goblin for the better part of the week now.

"So leave it to _stew_ and go get your gods-greened gangrel, you jackass. That's the _point_ of _stews_."

"She likes you, Lambert."

"I've _noticed_. Make her _stop_."

"Believe me," Geralt says, "I would if I could."

Lambert pulls one of the stools up so he can get a look into the cauldron that Geralt's apparently so fucking intent on brewing the essence of Awen in. It just looks like another trail stew to him. Lots of brown, bits of lumpy, liberally seasoned with all of that _absolute cop-out_. "Stick your prick in your stew, Geralt, I'm great with her."

"I'm getting mixed messages," Geralt says dryly, which: all right, fair.

"At least when will the stew be ready," Lambert grouses, in place of admitting it.

Geralt shrugs. "When it's ready," he answers prosaically.

Lambert throws his hands up and stomps out to the courtyard to just fucking go practice his angles.

* * *

Lambert lasts for three rounds of his bang-bombs before he snaps to the open air "If you're seriously going to try to hide yourself from a witcher who's _downwind_ , crotchlet, you may as well come out."

From one of the jags of un-repaired wall, a small blonde head peeps out.

"What's bad about hiding downwind?" Ciri asks.

"Any creature with a nose'll sniff you right out. Don't you know about downwinds? Oh, come the-- downwind! Downwind, you should know this. C'mon, glove off, lick the tip of your finger and hold it up- don't give me that look, pipsqueak." Lambert realizes he'll have to toss the training bomb aside to get his own glove off to demonstrate, so he bounces it into the circle still unlit to pick back up after he's taught _Geralt's responsibility_ some basic fucking sense.

"Lick it and hold it up-- see? Now which side of your fingertip feels colder. Yeah, that's how you tell which way's up or downwind. You stand in it, it'll carry your scent right to whatever you're tracking. Or what's tracking you, if it's one of _those_ days."

Lambert drops his hand, wipes it on his tunic and wrestles his hand back into his glove. "There, see? Obvious. Don't need any fancy shit to make advantage from angle of approach _or_ retreat, just a finger still intact and an eye on the temperature."

She nods seriously as Lambert trots away and over to the chalk-drawn circle to collect his bomb. "So there's being downwind, which means you're cooked, and being upwind, which means you're cooking. You get it? Lebioda's leavings, what the hell are they even _teaching_ the younglings nowadays in those fancy fucking palaces?"

(What, fuck Geralt's new shackjob's witterings-on about _careful handling_ and _sensitive topics_. He just knows when he was a little kid he'd always seethed hate at how adults would always talk around a fucking wound, even if everyone could see it still bleeding. Like not saying the _exact_ words in the _proper_ manner to your face somehow made it any-less-still-fucking there. And if the crotchlet doesn't want to hear it, hey, she's _entirely_ _free to go somewhere else_.)

"Proper manners," Ciri answers.

"Oh, gross."

"It was." Ciri agrees.

Lambert returns to his crate, weighing the practice bomb in his hand and eyeing the junction of two walls he's decided to practice off of. Ciri apparently takes the fact he doesn't bother to try chasing her off with the broom this time as an invitation (which it is _not_ ) to trot over to his crate and sit on the side of it, peering down within. "Why aren't any of your bombs really going off? They're just making a noise, like a pop."

Lambert snorts. "Because if I went and pit up the courtyard Papa Vesemir'd pop a Vese-vein on that varicose tapestry he's been working so hard on? The point of these ones isn't the blow, it's the bang." He gestures Igni and then pinches the tip of the wick with a touch that's been concentrated to the tips of his fingers to flare it to life. He holds the training bomb in his outstretched hand patiently. While the treated wick is hastily devoured, Ciri devours its process down with an avid anticipation. So right before the little sachet of black powder can go off inside as expected, Lambert shoves it snake-quick right into her face so the suddenly-close pop inside of it startles her right off the crate.

He snags her by the shoulder and rights her, still wide-eyed, before she can meet the floor, cackling all the while. "See? No harm at all. What, were you _scaaared_? Big brave lioness need a tree to climb up?"

A moment of stunned silence is the only response until she gives a hiccup and starts giggling too. "I wasn't! I wasn't scared!" she protests through it. "I was _surprised!_ That's _different_!"

"Oh, it's _different_ , is it," Lambert shoots back distractedly, unscrewing the casing to load up another pop-wick and spinning it back on.

"It _is_ ," Ciri insists, having now recovered both her equilibriums. "Why are you throwing them at the wall?"

"Sub-par spying, 'squeak. I was throwing them at the _walls_ ," Lambert corrects, "The popping'll tune-up my sense for what wick length I'll need to pinch to for an actual blow-bomb. So, see-- I picked out those two walls, there," he gestures to the junction with his empty hand. Ciri turns obediently to look. "The goal this round is tossing it to bounce the bomb from that wall, to that wall, to into the circle on the ground, and time the wick so it pops right when it makes the impact. Sharpens up your angling, sharpens up your timing. Here, watch."

He gives it two practice swings, parcels out the wick and eyes the ground, then does another fire-hot pinch to set the wick. He flicks the charred-off end of the surplus to the ground, and then carefully attempts the double-bounce maneuver. His wick-timing's close enough to right, a neat pop a split-second after the clang of the casing hits the ground, but he's a good hands-width wide of the circle's border.

He scowls. As suspected, all those easy, flat-faced farmland contracts he's been glutting up on recently have worn his sense for angling to shit. He definitely needs to beat it back into shape if he's to be hitting the mountains this year for the harpy season. Ciri turns her head back to watch him, still quietly perched on the crate-edge.

"What," Lambert snipes. "If I could do it perfect every time I wouldn't be out here _practicing._ "

"Can I try?" Ciri asks.

Lambert sighs (making sure it comes out good and long-suffering so he might match it to all of this _undeserved suffering_ with which he has been inflicted for daring to again winter with the Papa) as he leans over to grab a loaded bang-bomb and toss it to her. She has to catch it with both hands, given the size of it. He waits for her to wrangle it wick-upwards before he leans over her again to light it. "Bounce it off the floor and aim it for the circle, throw at the count of three," he instructs before he leans back and counts it out.

She overshoots the bounce so hard that it hits the far wall right before the bang, which given the distance comes more out like bip before it slowly rolls itself all-the-way-back and stops gently right at Ciri's feet. As far as the timing of the whole scene goes, he might call it visual poetry. From Ciri's forlorn expression as she looks down at it, she's finding it more one of those pretentious Nilfgaardian funeral ones.

"Terrible," Lambert declares gravely, so as to match the general mood they've now got going here. "Almost as bad as Geralt."

Ciri frowns, pale brows furrowing. "That's not fair. It was my first ever try."

"I know. And he's had more than a century to try at it, isn't that sad? It's sad, Ciri. So _many_ decades he's been doing it, and here's a _very_ small child who on her _very_ first try can _still_ manage a better throwing arc than he has _this whole entire time_. You should tell Geralt I said that, actually. Tell him Lambert said it just must be so _very_ _sad_ for him, young crotchlet." Lambert pitches this to her idly as he drops to a crouch to better root around in his crate. "Keep that in mind if you do go for it. It's vital I be quoted by name."

"May I have another one?" Ciri asks.

"You may not; that there is your only one. I make 'em custom, I'm not going to just start _handing them out_. And don't think you aren't sitting down and learning how to refill it yourself. Time to start learning to do some common work like the rest of us, your _highness_."

Ciri picks up her casing. "Learning to do bombs isn't really common," she says, after a moment of thought.

Lambert takes the time to turn this over in his head as well as he arranges two sets of sachets, wicks, and powder next to each other on the ground. "No, that's a good point," he concedes.

"How am I supposed to light it?"

"Well, 'squeaks, there's this wondrous substance that bees shit we like to call _wax_ , and this wonderful invention we've spun from said shit we call _candles_ -"

"That's not how bees make wax."

"You don't know that's not how they do it," Lambert counters, jabbing towards her with his spare wick-snipper.

"No, I do," Ciri insists as she takes it from his hand.

"Well, I don't know that's not how they do it," Lambert admits, after a moment of contemplatively tossing his own bang-bomb from hand to hand and trying to remember the sum total he knows for-sure about bees. People don't often call witchers in for those brands of pest. "So I guess I'll take your word for it."

Ciri nods.

"Anyway, I'm not going to be your personal lighter more than that one time, so go get you a candle after this, that's what I'm saying."

"All right, fair." Ciri agrees. She's started parroting some of his own verbal go-to's back at him recently for whatever-dumb-little-kid reason. Not an echo he's used to hearing pitched that high.

Lambert drops to a cross-legged sit on the smoothed stone. "C'mere, 'squeak, ground your ass and watch what I do."

* * *

"Geralt hardly ever uses bombs," Ciri tells him, after he's finally got her set up with her own circle and she's trying out some little kiddie floor bounces.

It's really too big for her hands, he notes, and what's even the point in learning how to hock a bomb _two-handed_. He'll clean out one of his samum testers tonight; should be child's play (hah, and also Eskel can go fuck his goat, he's _always fucking funny_ ) to convert one to take a pop-wick.

Lambert snorts derisively. "Yeah, and if my skills on that front were down to Geralt's level-- _ne'er-mote-make-so_ \-- I wouldn't be using bombs at all, so I could keep my own _self-respect_."

"Is he really that bad at it?"

"Oh, he's worse than he's bad, 'squeaks, he's stupid with 'em," Lambert confers sagely as he plucks another pre-loaded bang-bomb from his crate. "Bet you've only ever seen him pull one out because he's been cornered, right? Or needs a last resort because it's all gone to shit."

He pauses long enough in his practice-throws to see Ciri's nod, treating it to another snort and a shake of his head. "Of _course_. Man'll always be way-too-obsessed with sticking his sword into nasties. Just like his Papa. Hah, though, with Geralt it'll always be _both_ his swords, you get me-- wait. You don't get me, do you?" Lambert checks suspiciously.

"I get you," Ciri answers somberly. "Steel and silver."

"Right, yeah. Steel, silver, _and nothing else_." He nods at her and turns his attention back to his toss. This one gets in the ring, at least, though nowhere as neatly as he'll need in the cliffs. Up there a bomb blowing the outcrop next to the one you were aiming for can be all the difference between satisfying success by technical precision or technical success by wait-no-fuck-rockslide (and he can confirm from experience it's significantly harder to get the head to the alderman when your target's a fine paste a day's hard dig under an avalanche, and but passing wantwit's folly to hope for any chance of offal unsquashed for harvest.)

"You seem pretty smart with bombs."

"Oh, princess," he drawls, tossing his current handful of bang-bomb into the air and spinning to face her before he catches it again. He lights the wick up with a quick flick of his fingers, then starts tossing it up and down again.

"I," he begins (and he's timed the pop-wick to bang off in tandem with both the height of his toss in the air and the word-to-be-spoken, a neat trick he'd admittedly developed solely for its utility in annoying the shit out of Aiden) "am an absolute banger" (and-- _nice_ ) "with bombs."

Ciri's eyes have gotten gratifyingly wide. "Can you teach me how to do that? How to be really good with bombs?"

"Hah! No way, pipsqueak. I got my own life."

Ciri purses her lips, and then gets this look on her face like she's formulating something she thinks will be sneaky. It's kind of funny, how easy it is to read her straight by what happens on her face. She's got no art to it. He wonders if it's a Ciri thing, or if all the crotchlets scurrying the world are easy reads like that. They weren't so far as he could remember when he was a kid, but when he was a kid he wasn't much for trying to figure out what other kids were thinking, so.

Well, not like the answer matters. What's Lambert going to fucking do, go and _check_? Oh _yeah_ , _sure_ , he'll just stick his thumb right up his ass and toddle off to the nearest fuck-all village to start openly staring at their children, because that'll just end up _so well_ for a witcher. A round with the tarring and the feathers would be getting off _light_.

"What makes Geralt so stupid with bombs?" Ciri tries, and as it's an admirable effort at manipulation for a child so runty (and also it's not like he's gonna _run out_ of opinions to spare when it comes to Geralt's _shit-awful_ taste in alchemical choices) he deems it worthy for reward.

"Well, what does Geralt usually do when he's tracked a target to-- let's say cave, to a cave. So he'd tracked it back to the cave, then what does he do?"

Ciri considers this as she twists in another pop-wick to her casing. "I suppose he usually goes in and fights it."

"And Geralt does that because when they pumped all those extra mutagens into him, it bleached his brain. That's why his hair turned white, you know," Lambert adds with sudden inspiration, as who is he to deny his many life-debts to the stuff when inspiration comes a-knocking.

Ciri pauses right before she lights her throw to squint at him. "Is that really how it happened?"

"That is _absolutely_ how it happened," Lambert solemnly lies. "Now, whacking stuff with the sword's not _bad_ \-- woe-be-me should I speak ill of the way of Papa Wolf 'ere I shelter in his temple-or-some-shit-like-that-anyway-- but let's play this through again, only now we're gonna be banger with bombs."

Ciri's paused completely in her practices to listen, bomb held tight in her palms. The rapt attention to his words would be honestly flattering, if she weren't also, like, five or something. (Four? Six? He's shit at telling the ages. Probably that's another one of those skills you develop if you go around staring at kids. Which again: still a witcher, so _pass on that_.)

"This round, we find the cave, but we don't wait for the beastie to come back; we wait for it to go _out_. Stake the den until it's off to hunt, and _then_ it's go-time. Because that's the thing about keeping territory, 'squeaks--" he pump-fakes a throw of his lit bang-bomb straight at Ciri and barks a laugh at her startled actual-squeak before he makes his toss (and manages to hit the circle _and_ curve his throw quick enough to compensate for the fake-out on his wick-timing, because _yeah_ , warm his hands up a bit and he's just that _gods-damned good_ , come spring-melt harpies should be watching the _fuck out_ ) "--what keeps you safe'll soften you up if you let it."

Ciri's eyes are still rounded from his quick-feint at the first hesitant nod. She pauses, sets her jaw, and nods again, this time with something that looks like purpose.

"So while beastie's off having its last meal, we're treating it to some _redecorating_. Finding all the points of ventilation-- that's one of those upwind-downwind things, remember-- and blocking them off. Checking on the recent rock-breaks to see the sort of stone we're blowing, here. They've done so much work on making it hard to get in, so all we gotta do is the rest of the work and make it hard to get _out_."

He picks up another bang-bomb, turning to face her so he can demonstrate the differing angles of the following hypothetical throws. "Then when fat-and-stupid lumbers home again, it's thwip-right-after with a puffer, hup-hit-the-keystone with a blower, collapse the entrance, wait it out, dig it out, and there you go, a bit of time, a bit of planning, two bombs total and your contract's bang-done."

Ciri has been bobbing her head throughout, and at the end of it she flicks her eyes down to the bomb in her hands consideringly. "That _does_ sound pretty smart."

Lambert considers thanking her for saying so, because it's nice to know _someone_ fucking appreciates that around here, but then remembers that she's probably-five and also he loathes the little crotchlet. He settles on a single nod to confirm a mutual acknowledgement.

"Geralt said using puffball bombs ruins the organs. You wouldn't be able to use them or sell them."

"Geralt needs the organs so good all the time because when they pumped in those extra mutagens, it bleached his liver like it did his brain. That's why he can gargle down so many potions, you know."

"That doesn't sound like it's true."

Lambert turns back to his practice so that she won't be able to keep checking his face for tells. "If it's not true, why's he so lily-livered all the time? Ever think about _that_ , 'squeaks?"

"Is that really what lily-livered means?"

"That is absolutely what lily-livered means," Lambert lies.

"And you don't sell any of the parts?"

"Eh, sometimes, but I don't tend to get stiffed on my contracts like he does, so I don't need to go begging to the apothecary nearly so much."

"Why don't you?"

"Simple trick," Lambert says, and spins on his heels so he can angle his thumbs to his face and show her his best who-me-monster-no-see-I'm- _personable_ -look-it's-even-got-the-word- _person_ -in-it smile before he drops it like a hot rock. "Ta-da."

"I already know how to do that," Ciri says, looking rather insultingly disappointed given _he's_ the one humoring _her_ , here. "That's proper manners."

"For _humans_ , crotchlet, I'm not a human," Lambert snips back, dropping his arms. "I'm a witcher, there's no manners involved."

"What's the difference?"

"When you smile through their shit and you're a witcher, the difference is that when you go and _stop_ smiling, all the humans around you _listen-the-fuck-up_."

"Geralt never smiles," Ciri says, in the tone of one deep in thought.

Lambert turns back to his bombs as he decides he'll lend her a hand and lead her through it. "And since he's already spiked his first play, when Geralt wants to flex that he's a mean motherfucker, he usually has to get physical. And then the guard gets called in, and then Geralt gets chased out, and _then_ he has to go scrounging around digging out chort balls or whatever to hock to the nearest quicksilver quacksalver who'll take 'em so he can get his next meal, because Geralt makes _bad choices_."

Look at him, lecturing a youngling in the courtyard like he's one of the instructors or something. Just how he'd personally resolved he'd rather die than ever willingly do back when Kaer Morhen was more to the continent than a fossil in the snow. Life's a fucking journey.

"Huh," Ciri considers while Lambert's reflecting on this, and then it goes quiet for a while. It's actually kind of companionable, having another thock-clank-bang going on in the background.

It doesn't last too long, though. "What happens if you miss and don't collapse the entrance?"

"I know how to cause a cave-in, pipsqueak."

"How?"

"The same way anyone knows it, young crotchlet. I went around breaking all the shit that was around me and watching the how and what of it while it broke. Do that long enough and it's a simple matter of-- let's call it _applied experience_."

"How many things did you have to break to get good at it?"

He actually has to think about that one, spinning a bang-bomb on his fingers idly. "I dunno. I mean, I just was always doing it. Even when I was little as you."

"It doesn't sound like you were a very good kid."

Lambert has to abruptly grab at the bomb in his hand so he doesn't drop it when he's caught off guard by the force of his own laugh. "Princess," he says, shaking his head wryly and starting the spin up again, "I was a _very_ bad kid."

"And now you can do a cave-in every time?"

Lambert leans back against the crate and makes a face. "If _only_ every time. Nah, truth is even with all that breaking under my belt, you always gotta keep your sword hard in your hand. Caves especially. You can never know if all these roots you _simply cannot see_ are going to fuck your go at it anyway."

"Roots are the devil's veins, Cirilla," he declaims as he flips the bomb over his knuckles and then to his other hand to keep spinning it there, because he's getting a kick out of how she's started tracking the movements of it with her head like she's a dog or something. Turns out kids can be pretty funny. Who knew? "I personally find fighting archespores very cathartic."

"Cathartic?"

Lambert takes a moment to figure out how to phrase his answer, because that's one of _those_ ones he only learned himself through use in the context of that time-honored classic, fancy-fuck-contractors-using-it-at-him-specifically-'cause-they-want-him-to-know-he's-no-fancy-fuck-like-them (which, _hey assholes_ , _he knows_ , save the dick-wagging time and just tell him what he's supposed to _kill_.)

"A large and satisfying bite of the dish best served cold," he decides upon, figuring it's probably close enough.

Ciri brightens. "Oh! That's revenge! I know that one!"

Lambert tosses the bomb up, snap-points, and catches it back into a smooth spin. From the avid way she's following it, who even needs Axii when it comes to the errant crotchlet. Turns out all those useless finger-tricks he's taught himself on the stake-out work the same to hypnotize. "Look at us, the pair of fucking scholars."

"I think-- I want to start learning how to break things," she says, slowly.

"So go start breaking things. That's what I did."

She bites her lip. "But won't I get in trouble?"

Lambert eyes the way Ciri's eyeing the bang-bomb in his fingers as it spins. He thinks, idly, that "lioness" might be far too large a title to fit well on the youngling now, but it might, one day. Lambert's a witcher, after all. You don't last long as a witcher without learning to spot a predator's gaze when you see it, even in their young.

But Lambert's a witcher, after all. He knows how to handle a predator. He can't say he _intended_ his bomb as his bait when he started spinning it, but hey, _when inspiration comes a-knocking_.

"Then I suppose, 'squeaks, you'll just have to ask yourself this:"

Lambert can feel that the grin spreading slowly across his face is one of _those_ ones. The one that happens after he decides hell with this and just lets go, spikes his first play, and stops making the effort to keep the prey in his vicinity from smelling too nervous. He takes the moment to bask in the freedom of just letting it happen. Hey, it's the winter, and it's only the predators out here.

"Do you want to be a good kid, or do you want to be banger with bombs?"

* * *

"I just don't understand what's gotten into her," Jaskier says, tapping an distracted rhythm on the bowl with his spoon as he contemplates the (brown, lumpy) contents.

"Ah, crotchlets," Lambert agrees beatifically from around his own mouthful. The stew's not half-bad. "Who'll ever understand 'em."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> lambert: as one of the last witchers out right before the school got wasted, my largest reference for dealing with small children is myself and my own behavior as a small child  
> lambert: ergo, when applied, i assume all small children are by nature feral little goblins and i trust them not one bit, nor should any thinking man  
> lambert: this formula is flawless and also i am entirely self-aware
> 
> It's been fun to write this! It lets me dive into my specific ideas on Lambert's "thing" that's kept him around longer than most others (like Geralt's enhanced mutagens and Eskel's sign mastery) is not only the clear-in-canon fact he is entirely willing to hit back and harder but also my entirely-headcanon-creation that he's a ultra-paranoid over-prepper when he works, solely based on my keen canon evidence that I Feel He Seems The Type.
> 
> Second part'll be due soon enough! I have all the parts, it's just a mess.


	2. Where then will it end up

He's been fucking around at his formulas on the bailey with Ciri when he has another one of those bizarre encounters with Geralt's shackjob.

Guy's not bad now that he's not being so suspiciously friendly, at least. Nothing like a good upending to make Lambert's feelings clear enough on _that_ horseshit. He thought that'd be the end of it for good, but the man took the whole thing with a surprising level of grace, considering. (What, Lambert knows exactly how uncivil the dangle-the-human-by-their-ankles solution is when it comes to getting people to fuck off. _Why else would he do it_.)

Now that he's quit with the whole aggressively-interested-in-you-as-a-person act, Lambert could even say he appreciates having someone around who actually bothers with trying to hold their own in any given conversation. But then there are these times when he'll fucking lose it for no apparent reason or go inexplicably silent for long periods or Lambert will have an exchange with him that starts confusing, ends confusing, and isn't all that more comprehendible in the middle, leaving him with the discomforting suspicion they've somehow just had two entirely different conversations.

All he's doing is measuring out horse lime and letting Ciri toss this batch of testers at the targets. She's having the time of her life and it saves him the time of doing it himself, so it's been working out for them.

"Lambert! Lambert, did you see that? I took Sir Auvran's whole head off!"

(So maybe he names and models the straw dummies he mocks up for his winter practices off the starring actors in the last year's worst contracts. What, it's _cathartic_.)

"I did see that. Which one was it, the three-spoons? That'll be a keeper."

Ciri's readying her next toss when an ear-stabber of a screech rends the air. Lambert has a moment to dazedly wonder who the fuck let a bruxa in here as they're rounded on by Jaskier, who shouts " _WHAT_ DO YOU THINK YOU ARE _DOING_!?"

All that bardery shit he does means the man knows how to be _loud_ , Lambert will give him that. Jaskier is stomping towards them with fire in his eyes. Lambert leans to the side so he can sing-song behind Ciri's ear "Looks like little lioness's in trooooouble."

She sticks her tongue out at him in response, which: all right, fair.

Only then it's followed by a downright _imperious_ "Oh, don't think you're getting out of this either, Lambert!" which, by comparison: _what_.

"Me?" Lambert says, bewildered. "What did _I_ do?"

"You gave a child explosives!"

Lambert looks over at his table, then back to Jaskier. "Not to _keep_ ," he says. "I always got tabs on my stock, I'd know if she took some shit."

"You _can't give Ciri bombs_ , Lambert!"

"Well, she never _said_ that. We've just been doing basic blow-bombs, anyway, it's not like I'm _spilling witcher secrets_."

"Don't give Ciri _any bombs_!"

"Geralt taught her the formulas, and I don't see you yelling at him!" Lambert spits with something closer to resentful petulance than the righteous indignation he'd have preferred, hackles rising. This is getting uncomfortably close to his memories of being berated by the instructors for things he knew he didn't do, because it was always easy to shift the blame off onto the bad kid.

"Geralt doesn't let her _handle live explosives!_ "

"Well I should hope-the-hell _not_ ," Lambert snaps and crosses his arms, because this whole thing is bewildering and his go-to for defensive has always been to go on offensive, "He'd teach her his terrible habits. Why am _I_ to blame for saying yes if _she_ wasn't supposed to ask?"

"Because _she_ is a _child_ , and _you_ are _almost a century old!_ "

Lambert stares at him, waiting for clarification.

Jaskier stares back for a moment, then gestures at him in insultingly-dramatic-if-you-ask-him despair. "Melitele's-- were you raised by _wolves_."

"I mean, yeah," Lambert says, because it's technically-true and he feels it fits the theme of how surreally this general conversation has been going. "You realize that while you were shrieking at me about Ciri's shit the actual crotchlet's snuck off, right?"

Jaskier intakes a long breath.

* * *

"Tell your lute-boy shrew-wife he can't scold me like a child," Lambert demands.

"I'm not sure where you got the idea I've ever been able to stop him from doing as he pleases," Geralt placidly notes as he peers out from where he's sitting cross-legged on his bed next to a small pile of socks, darning needle pinched carefully in one hand and a small-so-Ciri's winter sock in the other. "It didn't come from me."

"Then make _your gods-damn crotchlet_ leave me _alone_ , Geralt. I'm not going to be harped at by some-- some fucking _harpist_ about the _proper care_ of what shouldn't even be _my problem_."

"I'm not going to do that," Geralt says, and before he can decide which obscenity he wants to start with for his response to _that_ , continues on. "You like her, Lambert. And you're good with her."

Lambert frowns. "You bleach-brain son-of-a-bitch, you take that back. I'm terrible with kids. I have passionate hatred for the young."

"You don't hate children, Lambert. You just think you hate children."

Lambert crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. "Counter: I know what I like and don't like, fuck you. I hate those little shits."

"When was the last time you spent time around children?"

Lambert tries to think back, which: all right, so it's mostly those briefer encounters of snarling to scurrying presences in his peripheral that if they even think about throwing that rock he'll eat them raw and fuck their mother. But go far enough back and-- aha.

Lambert uncrosses his arms so he can do some proper jabbing in Geralt's direction. This discussion is starting to feel worth a good jab or two. "I grew up with a shitload of other children, Geralt, and you know damn well I hated them all."

"Lambert," Geralt says. He's started up with the darning again. "Can you name something for me, right now, that you _didn't_ hate when you were a child."

Lambert considers this for a long moment. "All right, no, that's honestly fair," he admits contemplatively, dropping to his knee.

"I thought so," Geralt agrees dryly. "You're good with her. And you should probably stop saying you hate children." The corner of his mouth has lifted infinitesimally.

Lambert lets go of his laces for long enough to jab his finger at Geralt accusingly from where he's crouched over his boot. "You grinning nunfucker, _did you plan this."_

"I'm just glad Ciri's got someone out here to play with who's on her emotional level," Geralt says.

Lambert finishes with his laces and kicks off the boot, making sure to aim it for Geralt's head. "First of all: you're a jackass. Secondly, do my fucking sock."

* * *

Lambert decides to give the battlements a patrol while he chews over what Geralt said about Ciri and the liking kids thing.

It's somewhat more complicated by the as-ever uninvited company, in the form of the 'squeak herself. His fault, really. He'd wanted to drive her away quick so he could get his thinking about her done, so he did the usual and went for the upend, but he'd sort of forgotten that it was something some kids went wild for. What, he's _never spent much fucking time around the crotchlets_.

So now she's attached himself to his shin and sat herself on his foot to swing along with his leg, which means she's coming along for the ride on Lambert's journey of self-reflection, apparently. At least, he grants, she's working to keep his un-socked foot warm.

"Again," Ciri demands.

"No, that was for-sure the last go. I have way more important things to be doing with my time, pipsqueak."

"Like what," Ciri asks defiantly.

Lambert gives this due consideration.

"I don't have to explain my personal life to a child," he concludes upon eventually.

"I think you don't have anything more important. I think you could do it again."

"If you say 'again' agai-- _one more time_ , 'squeaks, I'll upend you again, all right, and I'll do it right over the wall."

She grins up at him. Maybe he likes her.

"Again," she demands, eyes bright.

* * *

All right, so it wasn't the _best_ time for Jaskier to round the corner on the battlements.

* * *

" _Tell your shrieking harpy I wasn't going to drop her_ ," Lambert demands.

"You're on your own for that one," Geralt says, pinning up another sheet to the drying line. He looks, Lambert thinks, _entirely_ relaxed.

Lambert, abruptly absolutely-up-to-here fed up, falls back on his usual method for that and goes for Geralt's ankles.

It goes downhill from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! please appreciate how many times i pushed the theme of "flipped" into this piece, i worked very hard.
> 
> cliff notes for ya:
> 
> lambert: fellas is it bad to hand pre-kindergartners bombs  
> jaskier: YES  
> lambert: oh, huh. well, i care not for your human social norms, so,  
> jaskier: how could you let a small child do something so dangerous. would your teachers have let you done something like this.  
> lambert: ??? i mean idk what they did for the others i just picked it up early as something to do while waiting around to see if i'd die  
> jaskier:
> 
> later  
> jaskier: geralt lambert was letting ciri handle live explosives  
> geralt: lambert was?  
> jaskier: _live explosives_ , geralt.  
> geralt: it's a good idea. this way she won't pick up my terrible habits.  
> jaskier:  
> jaskier: :) honey i love you but i hate your stupid cult

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked my fic, please remember to leave kudos! 
> 
> (｡òᴗ-)7✧ i like seeing who liked my stuff.


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